After earthquakes and tsunamis, let’s show Lombok and Sulawesi some crypto love for christmas
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Tl;dr
- Earlier this year Lombok and Sulawesi got hit by several intense earthquakes and a tsunami dealing lots of damage to the inhabitants and their homes.
- Funds were raised globally but more is needed and every bit helps.
- Crypto is an efficient way of raising funds.
- Let’s raise funds to help the people of Lombok and Sulawesi get back on their feet!
- Funds will be managed by the french based association MAD Lombok. Learn more about them on their Facebook page here.
Send some help with BTC: 3ApZ4CbuyLv7hGuYV2EctmMmaJDYw1qPoq
Send some help with ETH or DAI: madlombok.ethsimple.eth (0x735B67470E507221672Fd77a9C11FC392EAC700a)
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Hello crypto world,
My name is David Fay-Manzo (don’t worry, this is not a story about me), I’ve been in crypto for a few years and I keep being amazed when I think of the implications these permissionless networks can have in the future. I’m in love with the tech, and I know a lot of you are too.
For a living, I work at Coinhouse, the first physical counter for cryptoassets in Europe, established in Paris in May 2014 under the name “La Maison du Bitcoin”. Great crypto-companies were born at La Maison du Bitcoin, you probably heard of Ledger :).
In september I was in Bali taking some time off. It was my first time in Indonesia and the Balinese were very welcoming, friendly, happy to help, and always with a smile on their face. It felt great to be there and I’d recommend the country to anyone, and especially if you enjoy surfing, which I do!
Of course, before going to Bali I was a little worried. Everyone heard of the devastating earthquakes that shook Lambok at several occasions from July 29 to August 19. Not only did it destroye people’s homes, displacing 350 000 inhabitants, but it also took away hundreds of lives and injured about 8000.
There was enough coverage of the disaster and my goal is not to go into the details here.
That said, I’ve been happy to see that the Balinese are doing their best to help their neighbours. I first arrived in Canggu, where every restaurant and bar had jars put up for people to contribute for Lombok.
As I was contributing myself with the roupia bills I had in my pocket (Fun fact: at the time 1 indonesian roupia was very close to 1 satoshi, even thought the indonesian roupia has overperformed the satoshi meanwhile…), I didn’t have to look for very long until I thought “I know a much much more efficient solution”.
You know it too, right? So let’s do it! Let’s show the inhabitants of Indonesia and the world that crypto is not just about speculation and that it can be used to do good in an efficient way.
So of course I had the method to raise funds (well, only if you guys are willing to help), but I had no idea of what to do with these funds afterwards and how to spend them properly. My first objective was to find a suitable partner. I started looking around on the internet for what had been done and found out that Anne Perrin and Florian Gasmann, two French students who were there during the earthquakes, had stayed in the island, created a non-profit organization called MAD Lombok — Make a Difference. They managed to raise 33k euros.
Here are a few words from Anne:
“The project developed quickly as we were joined by more than 15 volunteers on the spot.
Our aim is to help the local population, most of which lost everything, to rebuild their life. Thus, we have three main goals. Firstly, we provide them some food, water and sanitary supplies. Then, we’re also working on setting up schools for several reasons : for the children to continue having class and prevent their education to be interfered with, and to give more time to the parents to rebuild the houses while their children are at school. Finally, we want to give the thousands of people whose houses were blasted the help and materials needed to destroy and rebuild.
These objectives are in the process of being achieved. Indeed, more than 220 000 meals distributed, 3 schools built, 300 children back to school, 2000 scolar kits distributed, and about 33 000 euros of donations : this is the current situation, this is why we can’t stop when doing so well !”
Here are some pictures to illustrate their actions:
In the process of making this fundraising possible, we were sad to hear about the 7.5-magnitude earthquake in the Minahasa Peninsula that led to the devastating tsunami on the Sulawesi Island.
Again, I’m not going to go into the details here but help is needed and MAD Lombok deployed their teams of volunteers there to assist there too.
Today, their are still several camps of people who lost their homes. Some are funded by the government, and some other are not. The goal of MAD Lombok is to fill the gap by giving food, water, clothes, hygiene products and medical assistance where needed, while helping on the education front by building new schools and on the housing problem by building basic infrastructures to give shelter to people.
To sustain their actions both in Lombok and Sulawesi, we are raising funds in BTC and ETH.
Send some help with BTC: 3ApZ4CbuyLv7hGuYV2EctmMmaJDYw1qPoq
Send some help with ETH or DAI: madlombok.ethsimple.eth (0x735B67470E507221672Fd77a9C11FC392EAC700a)
Coinhouse will manage the wallets, convert the funds to euros every week on friday between noon and 1 pm (Paris time, UTC+1) until there are no more donations, and send them immediately to MAD Lombok’s bank account.
Needless to say, Coinhouse will not make any profit from converting crypto to fiat. The market price will be Kraken’s. Any DAI will be converted to ETH using oasis.direct and the resulting ETH sold at market price.
However, we do have some constraints. As a french company, in order to meet regulatory requirements donations can not exceed 150 euros (173 dollars) per address. One address will be considered as one person.
If you’d like to donate more, please reach out to us at madlombok@coinhouse.com. If you send too much without prior warning, we will send the funds back to the address that sent the funds.
Every single dollar counts, and any amount that is little enough not to affect your day will affect theirs’ in a very significant way. Contribute with your heart (and crypto). Lombok’s and Sulawesi’s people will have more resources to rebuild their lives, and we as a community will have shown what can be achieved through frictionless, global means of payments.
For more information, please follow MAD Lombok on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madlombokmakeadifference/
and visit their website: http://mad-lombok.com/
Thank you deeply on behalf of Anne, Florian, myself, and everyone who is going to benefit from your action today.
Sharing is caring, please do !
Best
